There are many techniques for cleaning and sterilizing contact lenses. Contact lenses can be fragile and collect surface contaminants that diminish the usefulness of contact lenses. Moreover, many contact lens wearers do not comply with proper cleaning and handling of contact lenses.
Some wearers scrub their lenses with their fingers or use non-scrub cleaners and enzymatic drops or enzymatic soaking tablets to try to clean their contact lenses. Some of the enzymatic cleaners are made from porcine pancreatic enzymes, which are against dietary laws for some wearers. During the cleaning process wearers can have the misfortune of tearing their lenses.
Surface contaminants on contact lenses can be from external sources like dirty fingers, or airborne particles, or from eye discharge that can consist of protein deposits or lipid and mucoid products.